Resident Evil
Resident Evil is a survival horror video game by Capcom and is the inaugural title in the Resident Evil series. It was originally released in 1996 for the Sony PlayStation and has subsequently been ported to the Sega Saturn and PC. A Director's Cut was also released. In 2002, a remake of the game was released for the Nintendo GameCube featuring new graphics, voice acting and many significant gameplay changes. A Nintendo DS port of the original was released in early 2006. It was the first game to be dubbed a "survival horror", a term coined by Capcom to promote the title. Whether it was the first game in the survival horror genre is disputed. Story The original game opens on the evening of July 24, 1998 in the fictional Raccoon City where a number of grisly murders have taken place on the outskirts of town. Victims were attacked in their homes by a group of assailants, who left evidence of cannibalism. Local law enforcement sends in the S.T.A.R.S. Bravo Team. After contact is lost, the Alpha Team is sent out to find Bravo Team and to continue the investigation. Alpha Team locates the downed Bravo Team helicopter, but there is no sign of survivors; only a severed hand is found. While searching the area for further clues, Alpha Team is attacked by ferocious dogs, which kill one of the team's members, Joseph Frost. Alpha's helicopter pilot, Brad Vickers, suddenly lifts off and abandons the team. Pursued by the violent dogs who killed their colleague, Alpha Team is forced to seek refuge within a nearby mansion, believed to be abandoned. With the dogs roaming the outside of the building, the four remaining Alpha Team members (Jill Valentine, Chris Redfield, Barry Burton and Albert Wesker) are besieged within. A gun shot rings out, to which the player's selected character moves to investigate. At this point, the player takes control of the character and begins to explore the mansion. One of the first discoveries to be made is a member of Bravo Team, Kenneth Sullivan, being eaten by a zombie. The character eventually finds the mansion to be riddled with puzzles, traps and horrors; anything but abandoned. Scattered documents and files suggest that a series of illegal experiments and criminal activities were being undertaken on the property by a clandestine research team, under the authority and supervision of pharmaceutical conglomerate Umbrella Incorporated. The creatures roaming the mansion and surrounding region are the results of these experiments, which have exposed the mansion's personnel and various animals and insects to a highly contagious and mutagenic biological agent known as the "T-Virus" (hence the Japanese title, "Biohazard"). After navigating a series of tunnels, passageways and buildings, the player discovers a secret underground laboratory containing detailed records of the Umbrella Corporation's experiments. In the lab, Albert Wesker reveals that he is a double agent working for Umbrella and releases the "Tyrant T-002", a giant humanoid monster created through prolonged exposure to the T-Virus. Upon release, the Tyrant immediately impales Wesker on its elongated claws. The player then apparently slays the Tyrant. A self-destruct program is triggered soon after. After the player calls for a rescue chopper, the Tyrant bursts through the roof of the lab onto the chopper landing pad and attacks. Suddenly resistant to bullets, the Tyrant is finally slain when the chopper pilot, Brad Vickers, drops a rocket launcher and the player uses it to completely destroy the creature. The player escapes in the chopper and the game ends. The ending sequence varies depending on choices made by the player as he/she explores the mansion. So long as the player escapes with both teammates, the ending plays out as described above. Rescuing only one or neither teammates changes the outcome. Gameplay Unlike subsequent Resident Evil games, the first game had a live-action opening and endings in the style of a B-grade horror movie. The opening footage in Western releases was significantly re-cut to exclude much of the gore. Although Capcom had intended to include the complete and uncensored version of the intro in the later releases, only the PC, some North American and European Sega Saturn releases, and the German and French PAL PlayStation Director's Cut releases contained the original FMV. The gameplay environment consists of polygonal3D characters placed over prerendered2D backgrounds. As such, the game relies on pre-determined camera angles as opposed a real-time camera. As a result, the game uses a "tank-like" control scheme. Instead of the player moving the character in the direction pushed on the control stick, the character instead moves forwards by pressing up, backwards by pressing down and will turn on the spot by pushing left or right directional buttons. Many of the series' detractors have criticized this control scheme, claiming that it is confusing and unsuitable for a third-person action game. Fans, however, defend it, arguing that a conventional third-person control scheme would be limited and unwieldy when used in conjunction with the prerendered camera angles prevalent in the majority of the series' titles. These often imaginative camera angles are used to convey an ominous, cinematic feel to the player, claimed by the developers to have been impossible to achieve with standard 3D technology of the period. The prerendered backgrounds would also allow the developers to add a level of detail previously impossible for 3D technology of the time. The player fights enemies by arming the character with a weapon. When attacking, the player remains static and can turn their character and aim their weapon level, up or down. Initially, the only weapons available to the player are a combat knife and a Beretta 92FS, but later in the game, more weapons become accessible to the player such as the Remington M870 and a Colt Python. Ammunition for firearms is severely limited. The player must survive by fighting against the various monsters that populate the mansion. The most common enemies in the game are zombies, which are slow-moving and easy to outrun, but hard to avoid in tight corners. During later sections of the game, the player must also fight against zombie dogs (known as "Cerberus"), Hunters, Chimeras and Web Spinners, as well as small enemies such as crows, wasps and adders. The player must also fight against bosses such as a giant snake, a mutated plant, a giant spider, a giant shark, and the Tyrant. Health is restored by using first-aid sprays or healing herbs. Of the two, healing herbs are more common and restore a portion of the player's health, while first-aid sprays are more scarce, but will restore the player's health completely. There are three types of healing herbs available: the Green Herb for restoring health, the Blue Herb, which cures poison, and the Red Herb, which can't be used by itself, but will triple the healing power of a green herb when mixed with one. The player can mix herbs for up to six usable combinations. The player must navigate through the mansion by picking up various keys and items which are integral to the game's progress, while solving puzzles along the way. The player has a limited capacity for carrying items and this enforces the need to carry only essential items in order to have space for new items. As such, boxes are available for the player to store any item for later use. The player can save progress by locating a typewriter and using an ink ribbon to save gameplay data. Ink ribbons are available in a limited quantity, forcing the player to think carefully about whether they have made enough progress to justify saving the game. This method has also been criticized by many, but designer Shinji Mikami defended this aspect by arguing that it increases the tension in the game. There are also various documents available which provide the solutions to certain puzzles or simply further divulge the plot. Cast * Jill Valentine * Chris Redfield * Rebecca Chambers * Barry Burton * Albert Wesker Enemies * Zombie * MA-121 Hunter * Cerberus * Crows * Plant 42 * Giant Spider * Adder * Wasp * Sharks * Chimera * Crimson Head * Neptune * Yawn * Black Tiger * Lisa Trevor * T-002 Tyrant Category:games